It can be interesting to watch this alongside the Chinese movie "City of Life and Death", and the German movie "John Rabe", also about the Rape of Nanking, and the book by Iris Chang (who took her life after writing it).
The off-the-wall humour of this series cracks me up numerous times each episode (six so far). The young actors…
Finished the series which remains inventive to the last. Every time things are about to becoming maudlin, there is an off-the-wall LOL comedic moment; and every time it seems like it's just going to be laughs, Sun Qian puts her heart totally into it and makes us cry. Is there any other Chinese comedy series anywhere near as good as this?
Maybe you should watch happiness drama. It's a recent release with hyo joo in lead
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look. Do you recommend it? But I found her acting in Dong Yi and Brilliant Legacy\Shining Inheritance a bit unnatural and exaggerated, and W was a train-wreck of a script. I liked her in Love/Lies. I've seen most of her other movies. It looks like The Beauty Inside and Cold Eyes may be my only real joys in her work.
Is it just a coincidence that all the republican-era dramas I've watched (Sparrow, Lady And The Liar, and now this) seem so amateurish, in spite of the evident lavish budget? The actors all seem to just think they're being actors and not really living the role, they play the lines on face value without expressing any of the subtext, dramatic scenes suddenly cut to days later without any explanation of what happened, the moods seem contrived with excessive music to force the mood, characters don't behave with any consistency, etc etc. Do the Chinese feel too self-conscious about this period of their history? Most of the actors are smooth-complexioned and look like they're 10-15 years younger than their characters.
This would have been much more interesting if the pretty girl turned out to be a bitch, and learned her lesson from being the ugly girl, while the ugly girl learned real self-esteem while being the pretty girl. But alas, that's not how the story developed, and I lost interest and didn't finish it.
Set in a mountain village during the Cultural Revolution, amidst stunning scenery and crumbling drab buildings, a pre-teen boy and his pals struggle to make sense of the adult world: crime and punishment, politics and repression, sex and violence. This story and its setting are subtly critical of the cultural revolution. The boy's caring father is an artist relocated to the countryside, and he nurtures the boy's artistic talent as an escape from their harsh life. There's nothing offered to the boy by way of explanation of the events he witnesses; he just has to take it all in and hope that with time it will become clear, and meanwhile puberty inevitably arrives. The teachers, police and prison officials are surprisingly polite and considerate; it's the boy's own mother who is the most unforgiving and punitive.
Set in brooding freezing wintry Harbin, this is a pure espionage thriller, so is a sequence of scene after scene of torture, violent fights, a spectacular 30s car chase, and various feats of espionage derring-do. I lost track of who are the goodies and baddies, given that several characters seem to be double agents. There's a perfunctory minor subplot about saving the kids, which furnishes the sentimental final scene to remind us what all this angst is supposedly in service of. I watched this in exploring the oeuvre of Zhang Yi Mou, but I much prefer his other less masculine films.
"You can find many colors being used in many ways in this world, but purple has never been used for political purpose." This superb drama is about how humanity is expressed in art (in the drama through painting and acting), how politics and violence so often try to ruin the freedoms of artistic expression. Bonds of friendship, family, and true romantic love give people the strength to resist and remain hopeful. It appears to be based on the lives of real-life Taiwanese artists who are named and their works shown in the course of the story. It's about how the native Taiwanese Hakka were persecuted by the Japanese, then the Kuomintang, and of course now we all fear their persecution even further by the CCP. Every actor plays their role well. There is no melodrama nor over-the-top villains. The Japanese occupiers are at times represented as ineffectual, and other times even as nurturing of Taiwanese culture (in marked contrast to the brutal occupations of Korea and China). The final two episodes are suddenly dominated by the political events of immediate post-war Taiwan, and the three families/groups of characters were have come to know enjoy heartfelt reunions and painful partings. Some interesting cultural features: The main characters include a man with three wives, who despite some minor early rivalries gradually become deeply devoted to each other and each other's children. The family's servant, despite being deeply loyal, and given opportunities to further his skills, is always put down for his lack of progress with writing. As we know in traditional Chinese culture, sons are always much prized over daughters.
"Things will get better and better". The empty promise of self-serving leaders the world over, while the ordinary people try to survive, depending on bonds of family and friendship. This married couple (fine acting by both leads) are driven closer by the hardships they suffer through their life together, including the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and the personal losses of dearest ones brought on by those poisonous social movements.
Yes, I get the impression that many people give a drama 10 if they're satisfied with it. How do you rate? I haven't…
I like your list! It more or less aligns with my ratings, except I hadn't figured them out in such detail. When I look at my dropped list, I rated from 6 down to 1.
In "Not a Robot" the umbrella that has a switch to change it from transparent to coloured and covered with stars. And the scene with the kiss under that umbrella. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNvCKRr4Edg (No English subs alas. He believes she's a robot - yes, he's a bit stupid. He's never kissed before b/c he has an allergy to humans. He says he wishes he could meet the designer of the umbrella, not knowing it's her). And when the ML realises the FL designed the umbrella he bought, when he discovers that he has her umbrella as well as his own, and looks it up on the web.
Most of the actors are smooth-complexioned and look like they're 10-15 years younger than their characters.
This superb drama is about how humanity is expressed in art (in the drama through painting and acting), how politics and violence so often try to ruin the freedoms of artistic expression. Bonds of friendship, family, and true romantic love give people the strength to resist and remain hopeful. It appears to be based on the lives of real-life Taiwanese artists who are named and their works shown in the course of the story.
It's about how the native Taiwanese Hakka were persecuted by the Japanese, then the Kuomintang, and of course now we all fear their persecution even further by the CCP.
Every actor plays their role well. There is no melodrama nor over-the-top villains. The Japanese occupiers are at times represented as ineffectual, and other times even as nurturing of Taiwanese culture (in marked contrast to the brutal occupations of Korea and China).
The final two episodes are suddenly dominated by the political events of immediate post-war Taiwan, and the three families/groups of characters were have come to know enjoy heartfelt reunions and painful partings.
Some interesting cultural features:
The main characters include a man with three wives, who despite some minor early rivalries gradually become deeply devoted to each other and each other's children.
The family's servant, despite being deeply loyal, and given opportunities to further his skills, is always put down for his lack of progress with writing.
As we know in traditional Chinese culture, sons are always much prized over daughters.
And the scene with the kiss under that umbrella. See it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNvCKRr4Edg
(No English subs alas. He believes she's a robot - yes, he's a bit stupid. He's never kissed before b/c he has an allergy to humans. He says he wishes he could meet the designer of the umbrella, not knowing it's her).
And when the ML realises the FL designed the umbrella he bought, when he discovers that he has her umbrella as well as his own, and looks it up on the web.